Data management and sharing capabilities of conventional implementations suffer from various disadvantages including lack of context, refresh and delivery of new content, limited selectivity, and restricted user actions and options. For example, when sharing music files over the Internet, users are often presented with a large variety of potential files for download. However, only very popular and well-marketed artists, musicians, and labels are readily available or easily found by users. Lesser-known or independent musicians, artists, bands, and other groups are often prevented from gaining wider exposure due to the large number of content providers.
Some conventional solutions attempt to present users with content oriented around particular themes. However, these solutions still result in obfuscation due to large amounts of content organized around a limited number of themes or categories. Also problematic are user models for finding, retrieving, and running audio, video, audiovisual, text, graphic/pictorial, or other files on conventional implementations.
Subscription models, pay-for-play, individual download, and other user models limit the exposure of wide ranges of content to a large user base. For example, subscription-based services may provide a user with unlimited selectivity, but limited categories and poor presentation of content limits user exposure to content. Pay-for-play models are also limiting in that the user selects, retrieves, and executes a single file for each fee (i.e., paying a per-file or per-download fee). Individual downloads are further limiting in that single files limit the amount and exposure of a user to a potentially wide range of content, particularly in music where large numbers of small and independent musicians are producing content. In these models, users are limited to the amount, type, categories, genres, and other characteristics of services that present content for download, streaming, sharing, or playing. Customizability of these services is typically generalized and does not cater to allowing independent artists, musicians, film makers, or other content providers to expose their works to users. From a content provider perspective, conventional implementations are unprofitable, limited in exposure, and difficult to manage, prohibiting data files (e.g., audio, video, audiovisual, text, graphic/pictorial, and the like) from gaining wider, if any, distribution.
Thus, what is needed is a solution for data management and distribution without the limitations of conventional implementations.